Don't Fence Me In

“Welcome to the New Chastity Museum of Heroes.”

“That’ll be five coppers for admittance, kiddies only three,” says an old lady dedicated to public education in a kindly though monotonous tone before motioning to her left. The first open hall of the Museum of Heroes welcomes you on one side with a reproduced, oversized old-style map of the Pactlands and on the other side with an oversized print of the handwritten introduction to the novel, Don’t Fence Me In, by ‘Wildcat’ Kelly. His crackling old voice reads it aloud, and though recorded on the latest phonographic technology can be hard to hear over the din of the crowd. He reads:

“Heroes? Nah, I wouldn’ call ‘em heroes. Flaws in each an’ ev’ry one. Folks forget they were only folks too, with pasts that kept ‘em human, or gnome, or toad. Folks forget the gamblin’, the whorin’, the brutality an’ the barbarism of the frontier and of those wars. But they were folks who knew the value of actin’ with conviction, of keepin’ goin’ when the goin’ tried to kill ‘em. An’ they knew they could count on that in each other, least eventually so. So I can see why ya’ll call ‘em heroes, and that’s why I put their story to writin’. That and a few gold to feed me Slumgullion habit. That’s how they’da wanted it.”

As you pass through, you’re handed a set of Goblin Ears™ attached to a Copper Disk™, and you hear Wildcat’s crackly voice guiding you through the exhibit…